REPENTANCE 



BY 



LEWIS BOOKWALTER, A.M., D.D, 

it of Western 
Toledo, Iowa 



President of Western College 



The time is full filled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: 
repent ye, and believe in the gospel.' 1 

— Jesus 




-j \ . . » 



9 
■ - i 



"• ' ■» ' 



Dayton, Ohio 

United Brethren Publishing Hou9e 

iQoa 



THFXIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Cowta Recsived 

SEP, 4 19021 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 

CLASS «"XXa No. 

<*/-*> 03 2- 

COPY B. 



til* 







Copyright 1902, by W. R. Funk, Agent 
All rights reserved 



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i i i < 



ft* 

III 



INTRODUCTION, 



All of the great doctrines of Christianity are 
vital and practical. Their relative importance 
would be a difficult matter to determine. If 
each be vital, the question of importance has na 
place. Some of them, as, for instance, those 
touching the being and character of God, and 
some of those touching the scheme of the redemp- 
tion of man, seem to some minds abstract and 
uninteresting. But the subject of repentance 
never has had to argue its right to be held a prac- 
tical question, or to beg its way to recognition 
and interested attention. Even the light of na- 
ture and the dictates of common sense teach the 
importance of the moral change in human char- 
acter which we designate by the word "repent- 



ance." 



Men of the world who are interested in the 

iii 



Introduction 

reformation of men and society, as well as Jew, 
pagan, and Mohammedan, agree in asserting the 
reasonableness and necessity of repentance, so 
that we are, in a broad sense, setting forth an Tin- 
controverted moral and religious principle and 
duty, and not a Christian doctrine only. It is so 
evidently and so vitally connected with the plan 
and method by which any one in the wrong may 
get right and stay right, that its fundamental 
place in human, moral, and religious reformation 
and advancement is recognized by all. True, not 
every one has sincerely repented, but every one 
knows that he ought to repent ; and every one who 
has a purpose, however vague and feeble, to be- 
come a better man, knows that repentance is, 
on his part, the step out of sin into righteous- 
ness, and he counts on some day taking it. So 
thoroughly has this doctrine become a part of the 
popular ethicoreligious creed of our day. 

Eepentance is, in fact, the one chief, practical 
doctrine and feature of Christianity which so com- 
mends it to a practical world. It is a calling men 
off from a life of sin and wrong-doing and a 
starting them out in a life of right thinking and 
doing, as relates both to their God and to their 

iv 



Introduction 

fellow-men. The world says, "Give us a practical 
religion." This is just what Christianity, the re- 
ligion which preeminently teaches repentance, is. 
This may be the place to say that each doctrine of 
Christianity, in itself, and these doctrines as a 
system of belief held and taught by the church, — 
all this great body of living truth, — have but one 
purpose, and I am glad to say one tendency, too; 
namely, to bring about repentance, genuine heart 
and life reformation in men individually, and in 
society. While it is not my province to enter the 
general field of the defense and advocacy of Chris- 
tian theology, yet when I am teaching and com- 
mending repentance, I am but holding up to the 
view and the appreciation of men the natural 
product, the crowning achievement of all Chris- 
tian teaching. 

The duty of repentance, it would seem scarcely 
necessary to say, rests upon the one who has known 
repentance and a correct life, but who may again 
have committed sin, as well as upon him who never 
has confessed and forsaken his sins. Kighteous- 
ness and sin, and peace and condemnation, are not 
so much things of yesterday or last year as of to- 
day. Each of us knows by his own regretted ex- 



Introduction 

perience that while the conscious rectitude of yes- 
terday gave peace, the conscious wrong-doing of 
to-day gives condemnation. It is now not the 
righteousness and peace of yesterday, but the sin 
&nd guilt of to-day that constitute my moral case 
before the bar of God, as well as of conscience. 
"The righteousness of the righteous shall not de- 
liver him in the day of his transgression. . 
If he trust to his righteousness, and commit in- 
iquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be re- 
membered" (Ezek. 33: 12, 13).* He has lost his 
place of innocence, and stands guilty. To become 
right and again stand acquitted before God and 
Ms conscience, he must repent. 

In the same paragraph, it is written: "As for 
ihe wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall 
thereby in the day that he turneth from his wick- 
edness. ... If he turn from his sin and do 
that which is lawful and right, . . . none of 
his sins that he hath committed shall be remem- 
bered against him." He has become right, has 
"turned from his sin," repented, and stands ac- 
quitted before God and his conscience. To all 

♦All quotations of scripture are from the American Revis- 
ion Committee's edition of the Revised Version. 



vi 



Introduction 

classes alike, in this same message, the prophet, 
as God's "watchman," calls out, "Turn ye, turn 
ye from your evil ways." All this is eminently 
good common sense, good religion. 

These are the Old Testament foundation prin- 
ciples upon which the New Testament superstruct- 
ure of evangelical repentance is reared. So as 
to repentance, its duty and opportunity are held 
out every day to all men alike who may be under 
the shadow of sin. Barring the one concerning 
whom the Saviour said, "Whosoever shall blas- 
pheme against the Holy Spirit hath never forgive- 
ness, but is guilty of an eternal sin" (Mark 3 : 
29), we may understand that all who have sinned 
may also repent and be forgiven, for says Peter, 
Second Epistle, third chapter and ninth verse, 
"The Lord ... is longsuffering to youward, 
not wishing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to repentance." 

It may be said that it is natural to men to re- 
pent, just as it is natural to men to pray. We are 
nowhere else so "fearfully and wonderfully made" 
as in our moral and religious nature. This is the 
essential characteristic of our being; this is our 
crowning greatness; this constitutes our sonship 

vii 



Introduction 

of God. Said David, when singing Jehovah's 
glory and man's dignity (Ps. 8 : 5) : 

"For thou hast made him but 
little lower than God, 
And crownest him with glory 
and honor/' 

But, alas, we are spoiled by sin. We find our- 
selves in our innermost nature in constant moral 
struggle. Paul describes every man in his natural 
state and experiences thus, in Eomans 7:19-24: 
"For the good which I would I do not: but the 
evil which I would not, that I practice. But if 
what I would not, that I do, it is no more I that 
do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. I find then 
the law, that, to me who would do good, evil is 
present. For I delight in the law of God after 
the inward man : but I see a different law in my 
members, warring against the law of my mind, 
and bringing me into captivity under the law of 
sin which is in my members. Wretched man that 
I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of 
this death?" Here is our moral nature realizing 
its bondage to sin and longing for deliverance. I 
have said that it is natural for men thus to seek 
deliverance from sin, from its slavery and con- 



VII] 



Introduction 

demnation. I do not mean in this to say that 
every man will seek and find divine deliverance 
from sin by repentance, but that, at some time 
and likely at multiplied times, there will come to 
his soul impulses to a better life. The ear of 
man's soul is not deaf to the higher voices, nor hi& 
spiritual eyes blind to the visions of better things^ 
This is natural ; this, every one of us will say, is 
his own experience. 

Now the question arises, Why do not men listen 
to and obey these higher voices, follow "the law 
of God after the inward man," and, by God's help, 
break away from, or, rather, as Paul puts it, ac- 
cept "deliverance out of the body of this death"? 
Let the unrepentant man answer this question, 
and let him look about sincerely and carefully for 
his reason before he returns the answer. The 
reply he gives is a very humiliating one; it is a 
confession made in shame that he has chosen 
rather to listen to the lower voices and to follow 
the 'law in his members, warring against the law 
of his mind and bringing him into captivity under 
the law of sin." 

Now, the call and promise of the gospel to "re- 
pentance unto life" is the Divine coming to the- 

ix 



Introduction 

help of the best there is in the human, that men 
may turn from this conscious slavery to choose 
and achieve the freedom which is freedom indeed. 
To follow this noble impulse of our nature and 
obey the voice of God is the grandest act of the 
human soul. I believe that every true, candid 
man will agree that in this very act we see our 
better human nature, our own selves, at the high- 
est point. Proud and vain men affect to despise 
the humility that is at the root of repentance ; but 
it is vanity that is shameful, while humility is one 
of the noblest traits of a great character, and is 
at the foundation of everything that is really 
great and honorable in man. Kepentance is the 
proud struggle of the sincere soul against sin, 
and its triumphant rising, by divine help, into 
purity, peace, and the dignity of noble character. 

The doctrine of repentance may not be as thor- 
oughly comprehended as it is universally held in 
favorable thought: it evidently is not. But it is 
matter for gratification that men are open to an 
unprejudiced hearing of its claims, and so open 
to conversion to the high ideals of true Christian 
repentance as set forth in Scripture, and as held 
by all who have themselves become the subjects 



Repentance 

of true repentance, and are seeking to bring all 
men to a like experience. It shall be the aim in 
the treatment of the subject which follows, to 
place it before the minds of all, and especially 
those who may not yet have turned to righteous- 
ness, in such way as to set forth its true meaning 
and supreme importance, and to lead those under 
sin's dominion to repentance and a godly life. 



xi 



TABLE OF CONTENTS, 



INTRODUCTION. 

Pagb 

Reasonableness and Importance of Repentance Generally 
Acknowledged— Fundamental in Human Reformation 
and Advancement— The Practical Feature and Crown- 
ing Achievement of Christianity— Obligatory Upon All 
—Forgiveness in Every Case, Rare Exception Named 
by Christ— Natural to Men — Paul's Statement of the 
Heart's Struggle— Why Many Hold on to Sin— Repent- 
ance a Great Act, - - - - - - - iii 



CHAPTER I. 
Definition and Nature of Repentance. 

Primary Meaning of Greek Word — Related Ideas Intro- 
duced—Citations of Scripture— Final and Popular Mean- 
ing of Repentance— Definition of *« Shorter Catechism " 
—All Elements Traced in Parable of Prodigal Son — 
Its Radical Character— Timothy Dwight's Statement 
of It, 17 

Iti Mental Reach— A Change of Beliefs— Relation of Creed 
to Deed— Christ Quoted— Meaning of the Conversion of 
Heathenism — Paul at Athens— Importance of Solid 
Foundations and Immovable Convictions, - - 35 

xii 



Table of Contents 

CHAPTER II. 

Constituent Elements Further Considered. 

Sorrow for Sin Against a Loving Father a Prime Element 
— Love of God the Gospel's Chief Winning Element- 
Proffered Forgiveness the Creator of Repentance — 
Expressed in Fanny Crosby's Verses — As Stated by 
Phillips Brooks — Same Thought by Joseph Cook — 
Philosophical Setting by Professor Mackenzie, - - 30 

False Conceptions: Not Fear of Punishment, or Sense of 
Shame, or Remorse — Illustrations: Judas, Felix, Sur- 
face Resolves to "Do Better" — Must be a Sense of 
Heinousness of Sin — Place of Fear of Punishment- 
Thoughts of God, as Sin-Punishing and Sin-Pardoning 
—The Double Message from the Cross of Justice and 
Grace— Moody's Favorite Text— Sinnerhood of Man Met 
by Saviour hood of Christ, - - - - - 36 



CHAPTER III. 
Further Consideration of Prime Elements. 

The Part of Confession : Scripture References— Moral Value 
—Scriptural Examples— Inseparable from Repentance- 
Insisted Upon by Christ, 42 

Relation of Faith: Paul's Teaching— Faith in Christ — 
Peter's Preaching — Saved by a Divine Person, Christ 
the Way, 47 

Relation to Reformation: Paul, "Putting Away" and 
"Putting On"— Old Man and New Man — Sin to be 
Hated— Joseph Parker's View— Extends to All Known 
Sin — John Bunyan Quoted —"Abstaining from Every 
Form of Evil," 49 

xih 



Table of Contents 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Cardinal Character of Repentance. 

Its Prominence in Scripture— Some Doctrines Gotten by 
Inference and Evolved Through the Ages; This Taught 
Directly and Is as Old as Religion, - - - - 56 

Old Testament Teaching: Solomon's Dedicatory Prayer, 
the Prophets — Old Testament Examples: Job, David, - 57 

New Testament Teaching: A New Viewpoint, Theater of 
Religion Transferred from Outward Observance to In- 
ward Life— The Occasion Not Particular, but Universal 
in Moral Attitude and Condition —All Have Sinned — 
The Gospel's Proposition— Repentance the Key-note- 
Scripture Record: John the Baptist, Jesus, the Twelve, 
Peter at Pentecost, Paul — Repentance the Great End 
Sought in All the Great Truths of Religion — Is the 
Theme of Embassadors of the Kingdom for Sixty Gen- 
erations, and to be Preached Around the World, - 60 



CHAPTER V. 
Foes of Repentance. 

Atheism in All Its Forms Destructive of All Religion- 
Reign of Law and Reign of God— Holding to Agnos- 
ticism, Religion and Repentance Impossible, - - 70 

Effect of Underestimate of Human Depravity and Over- 
estimate of Human Virtue — Apologizing for Sin as a 
"Mistake"— Mr. Gladstone's Statement, - - - 72 

Culturism — The Error of the Pruning and Cultivating 
Theory — Worship of This Modern Fetish — Gospel of 
Repentance and Gospel of Culture, . - - - 73 

False Notion of Divine Sovereignty and ° Decrees "—False 
Philosophy the Trouble — Augustine, Calvin — Other 
Rivals of Repentance, - - - - - - 75 

xiv 



Table of Contents 

CHAPTER VI. 
Closing Thoughts. 

Vital Things Not Discussed but Understood: The Atone- 
ment, Agency of the Holy Spirit, Required of Every 
Class of People, Is to be Immediate— Great Folly and 
Sin of Delay, - 77 

The Gospel's Appeal to the Reason of Men — No Conflict 
Between Science and Religion — Effect of Empiricism 
of the Recent Past— The Spiritual Again Coming to 
the Front— Words of Henry Van Dyke — The Gospel's 
Strength Is Its Meeting the Spiritual Needs of Men— 
The Light Has Come— The Offer and Appeal to Men Is 
That They be Set Free, - 80; 



r 



xv 



REPENTANCE 



CHAPTER I. 
Definition and Nature oe Repentance. 

To understand the meaning of repentance, it 
is necessary to note the etymology of the word 
itself, found in the New Testament. The primary 
meaning of the Greek word, f^ravom^J^^^tteT' 
thought, a change of mind on reflection. The 
verb from which the noun is derived means, to 
come to a conviction afterwards; to change one's 
mind or purpose. It includes both the thinking)^ 
power and willing faculty. So that the original 
and literal meaning of the word "repentance" is, 
a change of will; and it is important to hold this 
real root-meaning in mind. 

But the word is generally understood, and cor- 
rectly so, to carry other ideas along with this cen- 
tral thought. Let us notice what this broadei 

2 17 



Repentance 

meaning is, and how it came about. One of the 
most prevalent conceptions of repentance is, godly 
sorrow for sin; but, according to Paul, II. Cor- 
inthians 7:8-10, sorrow and repentance stand in 
the relation of cause and effect. "Godly sorrow," he 
says, "worketh repentance unto salvation, a repent- 
ance which bringeth no regret." He says, further, 
to the Corinthians, "I now rejoice not that ye 
were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry unto 
repentance." It is godly sorrow that brings men 
to repentance. Another conception of repentance 
is that it means reformation of life; but in vari- 
ous passages of scripture repentance stands re- 
lated to reformation as cause to effect. In Acts 
3 : 19, Peter, in his sermon, says, "Kepent ye 
therefore and turn." John the Baptist, in call- 
ing upon the people to "bring forth therefore fruit 
worthy of repentance," refers to a reformed life, 
not as repentance, but as the fruit of repentance. 
Now we see what repentance correctly defined 
is, — it is that change of will or purpose which is 
caused by sorrow for sin, and which leads to ref- 
ormation of life; but, as is so often the case 
with a strong, comprehensive term, this word 
finally gathered into itself closely attendant 

18 



Repentance 

thoughts, and became the popular and correct ex- 
pression of all of them. So that, by scriptural 
usage and in doctrinal conception and language,, 
repentance embraces in its meaning almost all the 
feelings, volitions, and acts involved in a sinner 
turning to God and righteousness. The defini- 
tions given in dictionaries, cyclopedias, works on 
theology, and in current literature, all agree in 
their essential idea. Eepentance is held to em- 
brace, besides its divine elements, practically all 
of man's part in salvation and reformation. It is 
the person's response to the g;ospel message. 

In all that has been written, I do not believe 
that a better and more comprehensive definition of 
true repentance can be found than that given in 
the "Assembly's Shorter Catechism" : "Repentance 
unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out 
of a true sense of his sin, and an apprehension of 
the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and 
hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full 
purpose of, and endeavor after new obedience." 

In that matchless parable of the Prodigal Son,. 
Luke fifteen, we have pictured, in verses seventeen 
to twenty-one, the son's return. In these verses 
every element in the experience of a true penitent. 

19 



Repentance 

is distinctly traced. Note, here are consciousness 
of sin and want, sorrow for sin, a consciousness of 
better things, resolution of repentance, abandon- 
ment of sin, return to God, confession to him with- 
out palliation, unreserved consecration to his serv- 
ice. Let us notice these points briefly : 

By consciousness of sin is not meant the mere 
knowledge of it, but the person's realizing how 
wrong and base and baneful a thing it is, and 
that it is dominating and ruining him. "He came 
to himself" — a wonderfully suggestive expression. 
He awoke as out of an evil dream to see what he 
had lost and to what depths he had fallen. The 
first step in repentance is this coming to see and 
feel our real condition. The impenitent sinner is 
asleep, and, unless he awake, it will be the sleep 
of death. He must come to himself. 

The awakened prodigal was not only conscious 
of his sin and shame, but he felt that there were 
better things for him, and began to hunger and 
thirst for them. There was "bread enough and 
to spare" in his father's house. He was again 
conscious of his better self, and experienced the 
awakening of ambitions for the higher and nobler 
things of life. Sorrow for the folly and sin of his 

20 



Repentance 

course is the background which gives meaning and 
pathos to all that is said and done. Without this 
beautiful contrition there would not have been., 
there could not have been the beginning or the 
advancing on to completion of this great transac- 
tion. 

The prodigal's sorrow is of the kind which Paul 
says "worketh repentance/' and the specific act of 
repentance is now reached — "I will arise." The 
resolution of repentance is clear, deep, and final. 
With all his heart he determines to change his 
course of life. His forsaking of his life of sin 
is immediate and positive and complete. 

The very instincts of the true penitent direct 
him where to go — "I will go to my father." This 
is the final, the crowning act, in every penitent's 
life — the arising and going to God. It is the 
father, it is God whom he has offended and 
grieved, and to him he must go for pardon and 
peace. In our sinning we may wrong our neigh- 
bors and injure ourselves, but, as Trench truly 
says, "Strictly speaking, we can sin only against 
God." 

From the lips of every sincere penitent flows 
the fullest confession of his sins. "Father," says 

21 



Repentance 

the repentant son, "I have sinned against heaven 
and in thy sight." How becoming and how evi- 
dently necessary this confession appears; and it 
is full and ingenuous, right from the heart. He 
.makes no defense, offers no excuse. He is too sin- 
cere for this ; there is no argument to offer. What 
next and last ? He proposes to toil for his father 
in the field of humblest service. The service of 
God, in all which that embraces, also, of serv- 
ice of men, is the divine purpose in our crea- 
tion — is life's highest ideal. 

Thus does this parable teach us much more than 
ihe love and forgiveness of God. We do not get 
all its meaning in the fatted calf, the ring for the 
hand, the shoes for the feet, or the feasting and 
music. The other great practical lesson is that 
of the way of the wanderer back to God, to par- 
don, purity, and peace. It is the greatest lesson 
for the race; and it is put into such living form 
as to make its impression distinct and lasting. 

No one of any nation or of any generation can 
mistake the meaning of the gospel's call to repent- 
ance. Eepentance is not mere feeling, a thing of 
words and sentiments, a temporary change in the 
weather of the soul. It is a distinct alteration of 



22 



Repentance 

the focus of the intellect ; it is an act of the will ; 
it is a transferring of the affections; it is the joint 
rational act of the whole triune soul — intellect, 
sensibility, and will; it is an abandoning of the 
old path of impiety, error, and ruin, and a turn- 
ing Godward, truthward, heavenward. God's 
command to repent calls to altered thought, al- 
tered love, altered life and works. It is the great- 
est interference that can possibly be proposed with 
the individual's natural instincts, with habit's set 
way, self's pronounced sinful pleasures — with the 
whole current of life. It penetrates to where the 
soul is most sensitive, to its innermost self. It 
asks that it make readjustment, set its house in 
order, both the things outside and the things in- 
side. It calls for the most diligent search with 
sincere purpose to know and to do the right, at 
whatever smart or pain or cost, for unless this is 
the spirit of the act, there can come no genuine 
alteration of purpose, can be gotten no divine help, 
and there can be no reformation and no develop- 
ing of noble Christian character. 

The following statement of repentance by the 
distinguished Timothy Dwight is well worth re- 
producing here: "The repentance of the gospel 

23 



Repentance 

is formed of the hatred of sin, sorrow for it, a 
disposition to confess it to God, and resolutions to 
renounce it. From this definition it is manifest 
that evangelical repentance is the direct removal 
of sin from the soul of the sinner. By the hatred 
of sin, which it includes as a first principle, the 
soul is withdrawn from the practice of it. By the 
sorrow for it, it is warned of the danger and evil of 
returning to it again. By the confession of it to 
God the soul is brought into near, full, and most 
endearing views of the glorious goodness of its 
Heavenly Father in forgiving its iniquities, and 
is most happily prepared to watch and strive and 
pray that it may offend him no more. By its reso- 
lutions to forsake it, the penitent is fortified 
against future indulgences, and prepared to as- 
sume a life of filial obedience. In all these things 
we cannot, I think, avoid perceiving that evan- 
gelical repentance is the direct and the only means 
of removing sin originally from the heart, and, 
consequently, from the life of a moral being; and 
that thus it is absolutely necessary to prepare men 
for obedience to the law of God and a general 
conformity to his character and pleasure. To such 
beings as we are it is therefore indispensable, if 

24 



Repentance 

we are ever to become the subjects of real and en- 
during happiness." 

It may be well to notice at a little greater length 
the breadth, the mental reach of the change con- 
templated in repentance. It sweeps the whole 
horizon of human beliefs. It means a change from 
error to truth, an abandoning of every false doc- 
trine and embracing of the great cardinal doc- 
trines of Christianity. Christ warned his disciples 
to beware of the leaven, the doctrine, of the Phari- 
sees. The repentance of a Pharisee, then, evi- 
dently, would mean, preeminently, a change of his 
fundamental belief. 

It is not infrequently suggested that the impor- 
tant matter is not what a man believes, but what 
he does. Says the assuming liberalism of the day, 
"Let us.be concerned not about creeds, but deeds." 
What specious reasoning ! As though a man's be- 
liefs were not the very molders of his life. Our 
creeds and deeds stand related to each other as 
cause and effect. Says the great Teacher: "Do 
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit ; 
but the corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit" 
(Matt. 7 : 16, 17) . There is axiomatic truth itself 

Oft 



Repentance 

in the saying of Christ, "Ye shall know the truth, 
and the truth shall make you free" (John 8 : 32). 
Error enslaves, truth makes free. An individual's 
life and a people's life can rise no higher than 
their dominating moral and religious principles. 

The task before Christendom of the conversion 
of heathendom is the turning of them from their 
errors to the truths of the gospel. Paul, the 
preacher of the ages, everywhere presented to the 
people, whether Jews or Gentiles, the fundamental 
doctrines of the gospel, and called upon them to 
forsake their errors and embrace the truths he pre- 
sented. Notice his discourse in the Areopagus at 
Athens. (Acts 17.) After his skillful introduc- 
tion, he says, "What therefore ye worship in ig- 
norance, this I set forth unto you." Having made 
further exposition of their error, and having set 
forth "the God that made the world," he says, 
"The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; 
but now he commandeth men that they should all 
everywhere repent," etc. The truth has come 3 
error is seen, so the call — God's "command" — to 
forsake the wrong and embrace the right, is at 
once given in clear, ringing notes. The believer 
in false gods and false philosophies is called upon 

26 



Repentance 

to change his mind, to repent. Men — "the world" 
— will God judge in righteousness, according to 
the new knowledge enjoyed. 

What hope had Paul for the Athenians, unless 
they could be brought to a radical change of be- 
liefs ? So he dropped great seed-truths into their 
hearts, with the hope of leading them to see and 
renounce their deep-rooted errors. Mark, that in 
this matchless sermon Paul says nothing whatever 
touching the vices and abominations of the city, 
seen on every hand ; nothing even against heathen 
priestcraft and impure worship. Saint Paul was a 
preacher indeed — a master reformer. He knew 
that truth expels error as light banishes darkness. 
He was striking at the center; he was after the 
fountain-head of Athenian sin — their beliefs. 

This is what I mean by the breadth and mental 
reach of this question of repentance. It is, of 
course, a matter of deed, but it is preeminently 
first a matter of creed. To become a Christian is to 
become a believer, a thorough believer in its vital 
truths; else, it matters not how kindly disposed 
toward the church, the man is not a follower of 
Christ. "He that is not with me is against me," 
said the Master. The Mohammedan believes in 

27 



Repentance 

Mohammed, the Buddhist in Buddha, the Chris- 
tian in Christ. "No man can serve two masters." 
Christ must be for every one of his servants "the 
Lord and the teacher" supreme. Yes, repentance, 
conversion to Christ, lays its foundation broad and 
deep. Its essential character and meaning is a 
profound change from error to truth, from the 
wrong to the right, in beliefs, principles, purposes, 
and affections. It is a transferring of the build- 
ing of life's moral and religious house from the 
sand to the rock. 

The inquiry may well be raised whether the un- 
stable life so frequently seen among professed 
Christians may not be attributed to their super- 
ficial repentance. It is impossible to develop 
strong, symmetrical Christian life unless there 
have been received in the heart the fundamentals 
of saving truth. In the Christian life everything 
is built upon the foundation of deep, immovable 
convictions, convictions which are burned into th? 
very soul, when, on its knees in repentance, and 
close by the cross of Christ, it "turns from dark- 
ness to light and from the power of Satan unto 
God" (Acts 26:18). 

Believers who are thus grounded in the knowl- 

28 



Repentance 

edge and experience of saving truth will stand 
firm and walk erect, rejoicing in their unshaken 
trust and in their exalted privilege as "fellow-citi- 
zens with the saints, and of the household of God, 
being built upon the foundation of the apostles 
and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief 
corner stone" (Eph. 2: 19, 20). 



•20 



CHAPTER II. 
Constituent Elements Further Considered. 

Evangelical repentance, as we now hold it in 
general conception, is surely not abstruse or in- 
distinct, but a clear, well-defined thing. But we 
shall be interested and profited by looking further 
at some of its important features. 

One of its first and prime elements is a genuine 
sorrow for sin as committed against God; and 
committed not only against his just laws, but 
also, and especially, as committed in the face of 
his tender love and continued benefits. There is 
not only a sense of sin, but also a grief that the 
sin has been committed against so holy and lov- 
ing a God and Father. The heart of the peni- 
tent no doubt is moved and troubled from a view 
of God's justice and from the dread of his power, 
contemplating the consequences of sin; but as he 
looks at the long-suffering mercy and the paternal 
love of God, his heart recoils from the principle 
of sin itself. 

30 



Repentance 

The great winning power of Christianity lies in 
its clear and very impressive presentation of the 
love of God. The love in the gospel is its chief 
strength, its melting, persuasive power. This may 
not appear at first thought, but upon reflection 
each one of us will see that were there no "good 
tidings" of proffered pardon in the gospel message 
we would not give it place even in our serious 
thought, much less in the love of our hearts. God, 
who knows sinful human nature, knows how best 
to appeal to it effectively. His plan is that of a 
father seeking to reclaim his wayward son by a 
loving, pleading proffer of pardon upon his return. 
Offered forgiveness is to be the creator of repent- 
ance. It is a wonderful proclamation, and as ef- 
fective as wonderful. God commends his love to 
us, moreover, by giving his Son to die for us — for 
us sinners ! This breaks down the barrier of fear 
and doubt, and implants hope in the offender's 
heart, and also breaks his heart. Paul says that 
the goodness of God leads us to repentance. One 
has put it in strong and beautiful language, thus, 
"Kepentance is the tears shed in view of the cross." 
From the gospel is gotten the great truth that to 
forgive is divine, and from the same gospel comes 

31 



Repentance 

the great truth to match it, that it is given to 
human beings to repent. 

How well is the love of Christ and its effect 
upon a sincere soul expressed in the beautiful 
verses of Fanny Crosby: 



** Oh, wond'rous, deep, unfunded love, 
My Saviour, can it be 
That thou hast borne the crown of thorns, 
And suffered death for me? 

" I kneel, repenting, at thy feet, 
And give myself to thee ; 
I plead thy merits, thine alone, 
For thou hast died for me." 

Touching the influence which God's love has 
upon men, a distinguished preacher recently said, 
"The reflection that the moral rule of God is 
paternal, that love pervades holiness as fire per- 
meates a mass of molten matter, that the perdi- 
tion of a single soul entails an irreparable loss 
upon Himself, to avert which He exerts Himself to 
the utmost, is the mightiest of all incentives to 
repentance. He is waiting and watching for every 
one of you, anxious to give the signal which shall 
make all the bells of heaven ring out because you 
have come home/' 

The great and lamented Phillips Brooks, in 
speaking of the sacrificial death of Christ for man, 

32 



Repentance 

in his sermon on "The Conqueror from Edom," 
says : "My friends, far be it from me to read all 
the deep mystery that is in this picture. Only this 
I know is the burden and soul of it all ; this truth, 
that sin is a horrible, strong, positive thing, and 
that not even Divinity grapples with him and sub- 
dues him except in strife and pain. What pain 
may mean to the Infinite and Divine, what diffi- 
culty may mean to Omnipotence, I cannot tell. 
Only I know that all that they could mean, they 
mean here. This symbol of the blood bears this 
great truth, which has been the power of salva- 
tion to millions of hearts, and which must make 
this conqueror the saviour of your hearts, too, the 
truth that only in self-sacrifice and suffering could 
even God conquer sin. Sin is never so dreadful 
as when we see the Saviour with that blood upon 
his garments; and the Saviour himself is never 
so dear, never wins so utter and so tender a love, 
as when we see what it has cost him to save us. 
Out of that love, born of his holy suffering, comes 
the new impulse after a holy life/" 

Let us have a short statement of another mas- 
ter mind of his view of how men get right with 
God. Said Joseph Cook, in his address at the 

3 33 



Repentance 

Chicago World's Parliament of Religions: "The 
truly religions man is one who has 'changed eyes 
with God/ It follows from this definition, and 
as a certainty dependent upon the unalterable na- 
ture of things, that only he who has changed eyes 
with God can look into his face with peace. In 
Berlin University, I once heard Professor Dorner 
call out to his class, 'The scientific truth of ad- 
vanced modern ethics is not so much that man 
has a conscience as that conscience has man/ 
Shakespeare said, 'Conscience has a thousand 
swords/ John Wesley said, 'God is a thousand 
consciences/ How am I to keep peace with my- 
self, my God, and my record of sin, except by look- 
ing on the cross until it is no cross to bear the 
cross, except by beholding God, not merely as my 
creator, but also as my Saviour, and being melted 
by the vision and made glad to take him as Lord, 
also." 

It will both broaden our view of the thought be- 
fore us and, I hope, reinforce our judgment of 
the abiding importance of repentance, to have it 
briefly set forth from the philosophico-scientific 
standpoint. In Book III., Chapter 5, of Mac- 
kenzie's "Manual of Ethics/' occurs this para- 

34 



Repentance 

graph: "The religions experience known as eon- 
version seems to be a normal fact in our moral 
development. Kecurring to the mode of expres- 
sion which we have so frequently made use of, we 
may say that this phenomenon occurs when a man 
is made aware of a higher universe than that 
within which he is living, and at the same time 
'becomes conscious that that higher universe is one 
within which he ought to live. Such an experi- 
ence occurs in its intensest form only when the 
higher universe that is presented to us is recog- 
nized as the highest of all ; that is, it occurs in the 
religious life. . . . There is often a violent 
reaction against the past, a condemnation of its 
acts, and even of its ideals, repentance, and re- 
morse/'* 

Professor Mackenzie speaks thus further in 
chapter six, under the head, "Kemorse": "When 
an evil deed has been done, and when the wicked- 
ness of it has been brought home to the actor, it 
is accompanied by what is known as the pain of 
conscience. This pain arises from the sense of 
discord between our deeds and ideals. ... If 
it is an evil deed of any considerable magnitude, 
it is not merely accompanied by a pang of con- 

35 



Repentance 

science, but by a recurrent and persistent sense of 
having fallen from one's proper level. This per- 
sistent feeling of degradation is known as remorse. 
In its deepest form, it is not merely a grief for 
particular acts, but a sense of degradation in one's 
whole moral character — a sense that one has of- 
fended against the highest law and that one's whole 
nature is in need of regeneration. The best ex- 
pression of this in all literature is, I suppose, that 
contained in the Fifty-first Psalm : 

" ' Against thee, thee only have 
I sinned, 
And done that which is evil 

in thy sight. 
• • . • 

Behold, I was brought forth 

in iniquity ; 
And in sin did my mother 

conceive me.' " 

Notwithstanding the evident meaning of repent- 
ance, it is probable that many persons think them- 
selves repenting, or would fain so flatter them- 
selves, when they have no sorrow on account of sin 
against God and conscience, but on account of 
their fear of the hurt and punishment it is likely 



Repentance 

to bring upon themselves. It is not so much sin 
they hate as hell they fear. This, it scarce need 
be said, is not repentance. The criminal who is 
sorry, not because he has committed a crime, but 
because, being caught at it, he is to be punished, 
would not be called a truly penitent man. Here, 
again, is a man who is sorry for his sin because it 
fixes a scandal upon his character, or hurts his 
business, or involves others with him in public 
shame. He curses the day he committed the crime, 
for he finds himself disgraced and ruined; but 
all this he may feel, and yet know nothing what- 
ever of true repentance. In each of these cases the 
sorrow for the sin and the purpose to get away 
from it, all spring from mere low self-love. It is 
as selfish and sinful as were the sins themselves. 

It is evident from Scripture, and is the dictate 
of common sense, that not a mere feeling of sor- 
row for sinful acts or a sense of shame upon the 
exposure of our iniquities, or the fear of punish- 
ment, or every case of professed reformation, is 
an instance of repentance. If bitter remorse of 
conscience and confession of sin constitute true 
repentance, then Judas was a true penitent, for 
he was overwhelmed by the sense of his crime. 

37 



Repentance 

If sudden awakening of conscience and fear and 
trembling, with some professions of interest in the 
things of a better life, constitute true repentance, 
then Felix, the heathen governor, was penitent as 
he listened to the searching preaching of Paul. 
If the experiencing of one or of several surface 
awakenings and temporary inclinations to "do 
better" were repentance, then all who read these 
lines have repented, for it is not supposed that 
even the least pious of you have been so reckless as 
never to have thought upon your religious duties 
and interests sufficiently to have experienced some 
genuine concern. Aye, I dare say that some of 
you have spent anxious days and sleepless nights 
under the lashings of conscience and the fear of 
the consequences of your sinful lives. Yes, you 
have even, at such times, prayed to God to forgive 
you, and have resolved that you would reform. 
Are you supposing that on these accounts you have 
truly repented? In the light of present-day con- 
ceptions of what constitutes true religion, can such 
surface work, such mere tampering with the great 
question, be honestly considered genuine, evangel- 
ical repentance ? 

True repentance is a very different and an in- 

38 



Repentance 

finitely higher thing than this. To reiterate, it is 
born of a sense of the heinousness of sin itself. 
The penitent feels that he has wickedly offended 
God, grossly trampled under foot his just law, and 
basely violated his own conscience. 

It is not contended that the fear of punishment 
or any other self -centered pain of heart, is not at 
all connected with true repentance. Such thoughts 
and feelings, perhaps, almost always enter as sub- 
ordinate ingredients in the awakening of the sin- 
ner to repentance; but they are soon lost to view 
because of higher, overshadowing considerations. 
The true penitent soon has come to the place where 
he has lost sight of the hell of the future in his 
keen realization of the nearer hell of the present. 
To have fully awakened to a sense of his past 
abject and degrading slavery to sin makes him 
loathe it. And now being brought, also, to see 
his rebellious attitude toward God, he becomes 
conscience of the ungrateful, base return he has 
been making to a gracious Father in heaven, and 
he laments over his course with a deep contrition 
of soul. And further, while his sense of sin and 
unworthiness is the deepest, God extends to him 
the full and free pardon of every sin, a pardon 

39 



Repentance 

by himself provided in the giving of his Son, "that 
by the grace of God he should taste of death for 
every man" (Heb. 2:9). This "love so amazing, 
so divine," wounds him to the heart, and the 
clearer he sees the "wideness in God's mercy," the 
deeper that wound becomes. God thus freely for- 
giving the penitent is the reason to him why he 
should never forgive himself. He grieves, he re- 
pents, not because he has been offending a sin- 
punishing, but a sin-pardoning God. 

It is seen how that the cross of Christ magnifies 
both justice and grace. Calvary sends forth a 
double message to men, declaring with one voice 
the dark and dire character of sin, and with the 
other forgiveness for it and triumph over it. This 
is what makes it the one, only place where ref- 
ormation can be accomplished. It is at the cross 
where every penitent kneels. But the higher note 
in its message is that which proclaims the divine 
mercy. Here "mercy glorieth against judgment." 
Its great purpose in the divine economy is to show 
that "where sin abounded grace did abound more 
exceedingly" (Paul). So the cross becomes pre- 
eminently the expression of the love of God as ex- 
hibited in the death of Christ for sinful men ; and 

40 



Repentance 

that love is for all times and all peoples the power 
that turns men to repentance. 

So did the Saviour himself declare when he 
said, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto myself (John 12:32). Moody's 
favorite text was John 3:16, "For God so loved 
the world that he gave his only begotten Son that 
whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but 
have eternal life." This was, in fact, the kernel, 
the soul of all that matchless preaching by which 
he led hundreds of thousands to repentance. The 
declaration of the divine Teacher (John 3:17), 
"God sent not the Son into the world to judge the 
world ; but that the world should be saved through 
him," is the proclamation whose appeal to the head 
and heart of the race is becoming more impressive 
and effective with each succeeding generation. In 
it the helpless sinnerhood of man is met by the 
mighty Saviourhood of Christ 



41 



CHAPTBE III. 
Further Consideration of Prime Elements. 

The part confession plays in genuine repent- 
ance is worthy of special notice. At the introduc- 
tion of the kingdom of heaven and its King, by 
John the Baptist calling the people to repentance, 
it is said (Mark 1:5) that the people were bap- 
tized in Jordan, "confessing their sins." The 
Greek word used would imply that there was not 
only a confession in general, but a confession in 
at least some detail, a special confession of definite 
sins. This is indicated, also, in the narrative, es- 
pecially as given by Luke, where different classes 
are represented as receiving special instructions 
from John, suited to their particular character. 
The same thing is indicated in Acts 19 : 18, where 
it is said that in Ephesus many of "them that 
had believed came confessing and declaring their 
deeds." 

There are numerous passages in the New Testa- 

42 



Repentance 

ment which incidentally show that in one's turn- 
ing from a sinful life, or from any sin in which 
he had been overtaken, it was understood that he 
confess to God and men. The necessity of con- 
fession had been a maxim in religion with the 
Jews for ages. Proverbs 28 : 13 : 

"He that covereth his trans- 
gressions shall not prosper, 
But whoso confesseth and 
forsaketh them shall obtain 
mercy." 

Psalms 32 : 5 : 

"I acknowledged my sin unto 
thee, 

And mine iniquity I did not 
hide: 

I said I will confer my trans- 
gressions unto Jehovah ; 

And thou f orgavest the in- 
iquity of my sin." 

So, in John's preaching repentance, confession 
was made a prime part of it, strictly required by 
him, and as obediently made by the repentant peo- 
ple. 

The moral value of confession is not to be over- 

43 



Repentance 

looked. It may be asked, Why should confession 
be required ? what moral value is there in it? God 
"understandeth my thought afar off," what need 
to rehearse my sins to him? We may be helped 
by reflecting that men, we ourselves, require those 
who have injured us, but now come to be recon- 
ciled, to make confession of their fault. A re- 
pentance that does not find expression in acknowl- 
edgement of the sin committed is mere sentiment. 
If we shrink from doing this thing, our repent- 
ance is not deep enough to be of any moral value 
to us. We have not gotten the victory over our old 
master, sin ; we are in the same old prison, bound 
by unbroken fetters still. 

Let us turn to Scripture for a few helpful ex- 
amples of open-hearted, noble confession. In 
Nehemiah 1, we have a great man's confession. 
It is a model, no apology, no reserve : "I confess 
the sins of the children of Israel which we have 
sinned against thee. Yea, I and my father's house 
have sinned." He makes a clean breast of it, and 
his prayer reaches the ear of Jehovah. Note the 
case given by Christ of the penitent publican, who 
"smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful 
to me a sinner. . . . This man went down to 

44 



Repentance 

his house justified" (Luke 18: 13, 14). To such 
prayers the door of mercy is always thrown open 
wide. The moral value of a confessing repentance 
is given us in a very clear and forcible way by 
Paul, writing to the repentant Corinthian church 
(II. Corinthians 7:11), "What earnest care it 
wrought in you, yea what clearing of yourselves, 
yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what 
longing, yea what zeal, yea what avenging." 

Confession not only gives assurance to men — 
and let us be allowed to say to God — of personal 
thoughts, feeling, and purpose, but it also gives 
strength and permanence to the new-made resolu- 
tions of a better life. It is very important that 
the man who, in his heart, comes across the moral 
line and takes a stand for God with his people, 
do everything he can to renounce the past, "burn 
the bridges behind him," and to intrench himself 
in his new position. 

Confession is inseparable from repentance ; it is 
the natural and irrepressible impulse of a truly 
penitent heart. It is the past that pains the re- 
pentant man, and he wants to make it all right 
with God and man. Insincere people are gener- 
ally willing to confess their sinfulness, but not 

45 



Repentance 

their sins; but the sincere man is not dodging and 
tampering, he is acting the man ; he meets, and is 
glad to meet the issue squarely. In no other way 
can he stand in conscious uprightness before his 
own conscience, or receive the pardon and approba- 
tion of either God or men. So he will soon have 
found his way to God in prayer, and his offended 
fellow-men he will reach by word, by letter, by 
telephone, — some way, — and know the joy of being 
"reconciled to his brother." 

This great principle is taught by Christ when 
be puts the law of confession and forgiveness be- 
tween man and man thus, in Luke 17 : 3, 4: "If 
thy brother sin, rebuke him ; and if he repent, for- 
give him. And if he sin against thee seven times 
in the day, and seven times turn again to thee, 
saying, I repent ; thou shalt forgive him." Along 
with this confession of wrongs done our fellow- 
men will naturally and necessarily go restitution, 
so far as that is possible. Note what Zacchseus 
says, Luke 19 : 8, "If I have wrongfully exacted 
aught of any man I restore fourfold." 

Finally, let the importance and necessity of the 
confession of our sins in order to forgiveness be 
judged by the plain, unmistakable words of Scrip- 

46 



Repentance 

ture. I. John 1 : 9, "If we confess our sins, lie is 
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and 
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

The relation of faith to repentance is so evident 
that a formal statement touching it would scarcely 
seem called for. They are, in correct theory and 
in experience, inseparable. True repentance would 
be impossible without faith. When Paul was mak- 
ing his farewell address at Miletus to the elders of 
the church of Ephesus, he declared that in his 
teaching and preaching he had been "testifying 
both to Jews and to Greeks repentance toward God 
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." The 
meaning evidently is, that in so far as great funda- 
mental truths were concerned, he had set forth re- 
pentance and faith as preeminently the means of 
salvation. This is a summary of the preaching of 
Paul, and of all the apostles as well, and is the 
essence of the gospel for all ages — "Kepentance 
whereby we forsake sin, and faith whereby we 
steadfastly believe the promises of God." 

We will bear in mind that the faith is "toward 
our Lord Jesus Christ." "Jews and Greeks," all 
the world, every penitent who seeks pardon and 
salvation, must look to Christ, who said, "I am 

47 



Repentance 

the way, and the truth, and the life ; no one Com- 
eth unto the Father, but by me." This expression 
means so much, that in the pardon and salvation 
of a soul it makes Christ all. So declared Peter, 
in his first preaching, "And in none other is there 
salvation : for neither is there any other name un- 
der heaven, that is given among men, wherein we 
must be saved" (Acts 4:12). This verse will bear 
rereading. Every word is intensely significant, 
and the force of the declaration is cumulative. To 
it may be profitably added the words of Peter and 
the apostles before the council, "Him did God 
exalt with his right hand to be a Prince and a 
Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remis- 
sion of sins" (Acts 5: 31). Yes, to the penitent, 
"Christ is all," and faith and hope must center 
in him. He "was delivered up for our trespasses, 
and was raised for our justification. Being there- 
fore justified by faith, we have peace with God 
through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Paul to the Ro- 
mans). 

Do we understand that we are saved only 
through and by this divine person, this God-man ? 
It is not a set of doctrines, or the sacraments of 
religion, or the intellectual belief in the historic 

48 



Repentance 

Christ, or anything we can do or say or believe 
that brings us pardon and salvation, only as they 
are means by which we are brought to him who 
"was manifested to take away sins" (I. John 3:5). 
"Who his own self bear our sins in his body upon 
the tree, that we, having died unto sins, might 
live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were 
healed" (I. Pet. 2:24). "He that believeth on 
the Son hath eternal life ; but he that obeyeth not 
the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
abideth on him" (John 3:36). I came that 
they may have life and may have it abundantly" 
(John 10:10). So, my unsaved friend seeking 
salvation, your repentance must not only be ac- 
companied by faith in general in God the Father, 
but faith gathered about the Son your Saviour, 
"for him the Father, even God, hath sealed." He 
is the representative, the very personification of 
God in the scheme of salvation; and "this is the 
work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath 
sent" (John 6: 29). 

As to the theoretical side of repentance, what it 
is as an act of the soul, and what it aims to pro- 
duce in the outward life, we are agreed. And 
upon this point, also, I suppose, all will agree, 

4 49 



Repentance 

that the final test of the genuineness of repentance 
is the effect it has upon the life of those who pro- 
fess it. Indeed, we may say that there is no re- 
pentance at all where there is no reformation of 
life. I believe we may say, without modifying 
terms attached, that true repentance always in- 
cludes reformation. Shakespeare well describes 
repentance as "Heart's sorrow and a clean life 
ensuing/' It is a "ceasing to do evil and learning 
to do well/' This may be said to be its practical 
side, but it is a side of the moral octagon without 
rrhich it would be imperfect. To this practical, 
visible side of this greatest of human transactions 
we will now give special attention. 

The scriptures I may quote are not cited as 
proof of the position taken, but as inspired de- 
scriptions or statements of the great fact always 
taken as a matter of course. Paul tells us, in 
Ephesians 4:22-24, (which please read,) in a 
unique and very forcible waj^, what takes place in 
the life of the man who becomes a Christian. He 
calls it a "putting away" and a "putting on." The 
change is radical, complete, and evident. It is a 
personal, practical change, not only of the "funda- 
mental principles of life, but also and necessarily 

50 



Repentance 

of acts and habits and entire outward character* 
Notice, it has negative and positive sides; it is 
quitting the bad and beginning the good. The 
"old man" is put off as we lay aside a garment,, 
and the "new man," in like manner, is put on. 
The old man in the "manner of life," which is- 
"corrupt after the lusts of deceit," is exchanged for 
the "new man that after God hath been created in. 
righteousness and holiness of truth." As Paul 
puts it elsewhere, II. Corinthians 5:17, "If any 
man is in Christ he is a new creature: the old 
things are passed away; behold, they are become 
new." The man is new — new not only in his view 
of righteousness, choice of will, and affection of 
heart, but new also in words and acts — new inside 
and outside. 

Another passage in which the same figures are 
used, and the "old man" and the "new man" are 
described at length, is in Paul's letter to the Colos- 
sians 3 : 5-17. This is, perhaps, the most specific, 
full, and significant statement in all Scripture of 
what genuine turning to God means in radical 
transformation, great uplift, and permanent en- 
nobling of character. Note, too, its wide sweep, 
"Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the. 

51 



Repentance 

name 61 the Lord Jesus." Its significance and 
lesson are the more impressive when we bear in 
mind the sensual, base plain on which the Colos- 
sians had been living. The passage is matchless 
as a twofold ethical picture, painting in colors 
true to life and fact the change from moral mid- 
night to moral midday in human character and 
conduct wrought by evangelical repentance. 

The forsaking of the life of sin and entering 
upon the life of righteousness is not a merely 
formal or conventional act, nor is the living of the 
new life of Christian service an easy-going course 
of conduct. The Christian life is a most positive 
and pronounced thing from its beginning to its 
close. Among the practical precepts given by Paul 
in Eomans 12, is this, "Abhor that which is evil ; 
cleave to that which is good." Here we have close 
discrimination and settled convictions called for. 
And we need this in these times when the spirit 
of indifference to sin seems quite prevalent. Says 
Joseph Parker, of London: "Have we as indi- 
viduals and as churches lost the true notion of 
sin? Is it no longer infinitely abominable to us? 
Is it toned down to something almost indistin- 
guishable ? We cannot be right in our relation to 

52 



Repentance 

Jesus Christ, we cannot be just to his holy cross, 
until we regard sin with unutterable repugnance, 
until we rise against it in fiery indignation, fight- 
ing it with all the energy of wounded love, and 
bringing upon it condemnation of concentrated 
and implacable anger ." 

True repentance extends to all known sin, with- 
out exception. All sin must be repented of and 
abandoned. Every sin, whether it consists in neg- 
lecting a duty enjoined or in committing an act 
forbidden, whether it be against God or ourselves 
or our neighbors, whether it be peculiar with the 
individual or is his going with the multitude to 
do evil, whether it be a so-called little or great 
sin, whether it be known to men or only to the 
man himself, whether it be in word or deed or 
secret thought — every sin, without exception, as 
far as it is known, is hated and lamented and for- 
saken by the truly penitent and reformed man. If 
a professed Christian indulges in any one known 
sin, however small he may think it, he is a stran- 
ger to true repentance. It matters not how sorry 
he may be for other sins, or how fully he may have 
forsaken them, his clinging to this makes him an 
unrepentant, an unreformed, a sinful man. 

53 



Repentance 

In a striking passage in "Grace Abounding," 
John Bunyan thus describes his vision of the en- 
trance to the way of life : "But forasmuch as the 
passage was wonderfully narrow, even so narrow 
tfctat I could not but with great difficulty enter 
in thereat, it showed me that none could enter 
into life but those that were in downright earnest, 
and unless also they left that wicked world behind 
them; for here was only room for body and soul, 
but not for body and soul and sin." One has well 
said, "There are no little sins; there are no little 
virtues; there are no minor pieties; the character 
of the universe is one ; it is equally holy at every 
point; he who breaks one law injures the whole 
circle of duty, and proves himself to be capable of 
breaking out of that circle at any point that may 
suit him at the moment." The case is so clear that 
it needs no argument. 

Does some man, in reading this, find his con- 
science smiting him? What can be done to save 
such men ? — to save them from themselves ? What 
a battle is this struggle against sin ! It is a los- 
ing battle with every man who does not, in deep- 
est, absolute sincerity, in his very inmost soul, re- 



54 



Repentance 

pudiate all sin, and utterly cease the indulgence of 
it in his life. 

The divine requirement is (I. Thes. 5 : 22) that 
the Christian "abstain from every form of evil/' 
Forms of evil are various, and not always easily 
detected, but generally the sincere, conscientious 
man can see where clear and unmistakable truth 
and good lie, and also when a principle or course 
of action is of a doubtful kind. From such he 
should stand aloof. 

Why should not the man who has entered "the 
kingdom of heaven," and sworn allegiance to 
Christ, feel himself bound by the most sacred ob- 
ligations to be always a thoroughly loyal subject? 
I ask, in the name of common consistency and in 
behalf of the sacred cause which is so often be- 
trayed by those who do not "walk worthily of the 
calling wherewith they were called," why every 
Christian should not stand true and be active in 
every-day faithfulness to his highest ideals of 
Christian living? 



55 



CHAPTER IV. 
The Cardinal Character of Repentance. 

From what has been already said respecting the 
essential meaning and nature of repentance, its 
cardinal character as a doctrine of religion is very 
evident; but, as is the case with every funda- 
mental truth, so in the case of this, every view we 
take of it adds to its evidently vital character. 
While already no little scripture has been quoted 
in the preceding pages, let us take more special 
note of the prominent setting-forth of this doc- 
trine in the Book. It may be worth while here to 
recall that, in the case of some very important and 
well-defined doctrines of theology, their becoming 
such was by a process of inference, of the com- 
bining of various teachings of Scripture; they 
were built up, as a superstructure of different 
parts ; or, stated under another figure, they were a 
growth, an evolution. 

We are indebted to the ages, to the men who 

56 



Repentance 

have preceded us, for much of the rich heritage 
of Christian doctrine which, without our toilsome 
research and thought, is ours to-day. But respect- 
ing the doctrine of repentance, no such processes 
were necessary; it stood forth from the beginning 
on every page of Sacred Writ as a clearly defined 
and essential feature of religion. Eepentance is 
as old as religion; it is a necessary part of the 
religion of sinful beings. So, while the repent- 
ance which we are having in mind, it is true^ 
is Christian repentance, it is not, by any means, a 
new element in religion and the worship of God, 
but only an old element, an old act of the human 
will in a new setting — repentance of a higher type, 
prompted by the new and higher motives of the 
gospel, and leading to correspondingly higher re- 
sults in heart and life. 

The Old Testament is full of repentance, set 
forth both in precept and example. One of the 
most beautiful and instructive passages touching 
repentance is the well-known paragraph in Solo- 
mon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, 
I. Kings 8 : 46-52, in which Solomon asks, in case 
the people sin, and are punished with captivity: 
"If they shall bethink themselves in the land 

57 



Repentance 

whither they are carried captive and turn again 
<. . . saying, We have sinned, and have done 
perversely, ... if they return unto thee with 
all their heart and with all their soul . . . 
and pray unto thee, . . . then hear thou their 
prayer and their supplication in heaven thy dwell- 
ing place . . . and forgive thy people who 
have sinned against thee." Such a piece of na- 
tional literature as this not only expressed the al- 
ready crystallized belief and practice of God's 
chosen people, but also stood as an authoritative 
article of faith which molded religious thought 
for all the coming generations. And this we see 
to have been the case, for the Old Testament form 
of expressing repentance, — and one than which no 
other more expressive can ever be found, — "Turn, 
ye, turn ye," is found in every book. Note a few 
passages : "Turn you at my reproof" (Prov. 1 : 23) . 
"Jehovah testified unto Israel, and unto Judah, 
by every prophet, and every seer, saying, Turn ye 
from your evil ways, and keep my commandments 
and my statutes" (II. Kings 17:13). "Hear ye 
the word of Jehovah, all ye of Judah, that enter 
in at these gates to worship Jehovah. Thus saith 
Jehovah of Hosts, the God of Israel, Amend your 

58 



Repentance 

ways and your doings, and I will cause you to 
dwell in this place" (Jer. 7:2, 3). What a beau- 
tiful expression of repentance is this in Lamenta- 
tions 3 : 40, 41 : 

"Let us search and try our 
ways, and turn again to Je- 
hovah. 
Let us lift up our heart with 
our hands unto God in the 
heavens." 

"Keturn ye, and turn yourselves from all your 
transgressions ; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. 
Cast away from you all your transgressions 
wherein ye have transgressed; and make you a 
new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, 
house of Israel?" (Ezek. 18:30, 31). "Yet 
even now, saith Jehovah, turn ye unto me with 
all your heart, and with fasting, and with weep- 
ing, and with mourning: and rend your heart, 
and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah, 
your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow 
to anger, and abundant in loving kindness" (Joel 
2: 12, 13). Says Isaiah, the "evangelical 
prophet," chapter fifty-five, seventh verse, "Let the 
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man 

59 



Repentance 

his thoughts; and let him return unto Jehovah, 
and he will have mercy upon him ; and to our God, 
for he will abundantly pardon." These Old Tes- 
tament scriptures make good texts for preachers 
and splendid instruction for all men, to-day. 

Old Testament history is made illustrious, as a 
biography, by its recitals of the repentance of its 
great characters. Says Job, chapter forty-two, 
sixth verse, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust 
and ashes." King Jehoshaphat and other kings 
called the nation to repentance. The Fifty-first 
and Thirty-second Psalms, written, as is gener- 
ally agreed, by David, are the finest and most beau- 
tiful passages setting forth repentance and for- 
giveness in all literature. They are understood 
to be the expression of David's personal experi- 
ence. The former is well given, by the American 
Kevision Committee's edition of the Kevised Ver- 
sion, the heading, "A Contrite Sinner's Prayer for 
Pardon," and the latter the title, "Blessedness of 
Forgiveness and of Trust in God." Turn, reader, 
to these matchless paragraphs. 

But the repentance of the old dispensation may 
be said to have been incidental; that is, it comes 
to the front upon occasion. When the nation or 

60 



Repentance 

a city or an individual has fallen into special sin, 
then, through some prophet or priest or ruler, is 
heard the command of God to repent, the call to 
turn from the sin in confession and reformation, 
and seek forgiveness. Under the gospel dispensa- 
tion, we have a new and very different order of 
things — a new viewpoint, from which the whole 
question of religion is to be understood. Judaism 
and Christianity are two different conceptions. 
For instance, in extent, the one was tribal — for 
the Jew; the other is universal — for man. Juda- 
ism was a depository of the divine truth of its 
day, where the only world-thought was the defense 
and preservation of religion against the world. 
Christianity is a new divine truth, proclaimed and 
organized for the salvation, lor the religious con- 
quest of the world. 

But in spirit and aim they are still more di- 
verse. "The law was given through Moses; grace 
and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1: 
17). Here is a vast leap — upward, from law to 
grace, from "the ministration of condemnation" 
to "the ministration of righteousness," from the 
old to the new — the "new covenant; not of the 
letter, but of the spirit; for the letter killeth 

61 



Repentance 

but the spirit giveth life" (II. Cor. 3). The 
theater of religion is transferred from tables of 
law and the outward observance of their com- 
mands and prohibitions, to the hearts of men, the 
aim being the transforming of their inner life and 
their obeying with "all the heart" the new law of 
love written there. Eeligion is now not an "obedi- 
ence," but a "life." So the thought is not any 
more one of conformity of acts to a code of "thou 
shalts" and "thou shalt nots," but of the heart re- 
lation of a man to God, his creator and sovereign, 
of a son to his father. 

I have said that in the old dispensation repent- 
ance was incidental — on occasion; that that occa- 
sion was some special act of legal transgression; 
there had been sin, and hence must be repentance. 
In the new dispensation, there is no abrogation of 
the rule that there must be an occasion in order 
to a call to repentance, but the occasion here is a 
very different one. The occasion is not particu- 
lar, — in an individual's act, — but universal — in a 
race's attitude. The core of the matter, the phi- 
losophy of it, is considered; at the root, human 
action is, and always has been, a question of atti- 
tude. 

62 



Repentance 

And now, what is the attitude of the human 
race toward God? The old evangelical seer, 
Isaiah, had it in dim outline, "All we like sheep 
have gone astray." As Christ put it, we are prodi- 
gals; we have deserted our father's house, have 
gone off in virtual rebellion to set up outside of 
his dominion for ourselves. So we are sinners, 
all; we are all under a common condemnation. 
"For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory 
of God," says Paul. (Eom. 3:23.) I am not 
now speaking of the race as a race only, but of 
each of us as individual members of it. We are 
all sinners, individually, both by attitude and by 
act, and we know it. Indeed, our sense of sin is 
so deep that we feel it to be more than an attitude 
— a condition. There is no other human experi- 
ence more universal and more distinct than the 
consciousness of the three deadly facts, as Henry 
Drummond calls them, of the power and stain and 
guilt of sin. 

Here, now, enters the gospel, with its plan to 
purify men and get them back to their allegiance 
and peace with God. It is a "gospel for a world 
of sin." And what, in the very nature and the 
actual necessity of the case, would be its first and 

63 



Repentance 

its chief request and requirement? Bepent, re- 
pent, return, my son, in contrition and confession, 
and I will receive you. It needs no argument to 
show that a scheme for the bringing of a race of 
rebellious sinners to genuine change of attitude 
toward God must include those states of heart 
which constitute evangelical repentance. So, when 
in the fullness of time the spiritual reformation 
of the world and the setting up of the kingdom 
of righteousness were inaugurated, the key-note of 
the divine requirement proclaimed to men was, 
repentance. 

Let us notice a few striking passages of scrip- 
ture. Of the herald of the new kingdom and its 
King, it is written, in Matthew 3 : "In those days 
cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilder- 
ness of Judaea, saying, Eepent ye; for the king- 
dom of heaven is at hand. . . . And they 
were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confess- 
ing their sins. . . . Bring forth therefore 
fruit worthy of repentance. ... I indeed 
baptize you in water unto repentance : but he that 
cometh after me is mightier than I. . . . He 
shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire." 
In Mark 1 : 14, 15, is contained the following dec- 

64 



Repentance 

laration: "Now after John was delivered up, 
Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of 
God, and saying, The time is fulfilled, and the 
kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and be- 
lieve in the gospel." In this passage we have, evi- 
dently, the substance of our Saviour's preaching; 
and it was clearly the substance of the preaching 
of The Twelve, who were his especially instructed 
under-preachers. In Mark 6, where we have the 
account of their first sending forth "by two and 
two," in verse twelve it is said, "And they went 
out, and preached that men should repent." This 
is all that is said concerning their preaching; it 
was evidently all that need be said. 

In Luke 5 : 32, Christ declares the end of his 
coming, the object of his labors, to be to "call sin- 
ners to repentance." When, therefore, men re- 
pent, the purpose of Christ's mission is fulfilled. 
In Matthew 11 : 20, this record of Christ's thought 
and attitude is made, "Then began he to upbraid 
the cities wherein most of his mighty works were 
done, because they repented not." He declares 
that if the mighty works had been done in Tyre 
and Sidon which were done in them, "they would 
have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes." 

5 65 



Repentance 

We recall the conversation given in Luke 13 : 1-5, 
which occurred between Christ and certain peo- 
ple of the crowd, in which he twice declared, "Ex- 
cept ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." No 
skilled exegete is needed to see what was back of 
the following words, expressing both wounding 
disappointment and burning condemnatory judg- 
ment, "The men of Mneveh shall stand up in thp 
judgment with this generation, and shall condemn 
it : for they repented at the preaching of Jonah ; 
and behold, a greater than Jonah is here" (Matt. 
12:41). Christ declares that the joys of heaven 
are increased by the repentance of sinful men, "I 
say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the 
angels of God over one sinner that repenteth." 

In his last teaching given the apostles respect- 
ing the meaning of his mission to earth, his death 
and resurrection, as recorded by Luke, chapter 24 : 
46, 47, Christ said : "Thus it is written, that the 
Christ should suffer, and rise again from the dead 
the third day; and that repentance and remission 
of sins should be preached in his name unto all 
the nations, beginning from Jerusalem." So, was 
repentance the first note sounded by Christ in his 
preaching, the burden of all his ministry, and the 

C6 



Repentance 

theme and message put into the heart and upon 
the tongue of his apostles to be preached "unto 
all nations." True to their instructions as the 
ambassadors of Christ and heralds of his gospel, 
they went forth calling all men to repentance. In 
Acts 2, where we have the account of the first gos- 
pel sermon, by Peter, we read that, to the con- 
victed multitude who asked what they should do, 
Peter answered, "Kepent ye, and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the 
remission of your sins." Again to the throng, 
"Eepent ye therefore, and turn again, that your 
sins may be blotted out" (Acts 3:19). Again, 
before the council (Acts 5: 31), Peter declared of 
Christ, "Him did God exalt, with his right hand 
to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance 
to Israel and remission of sins." In Acts 11 : 18, 
it is said, after Peter recounts to the church at 
Jerusalem the saving results of his preaching in 
the home of Cornelius, that the company "glori- 
fied God, saying, Then to the Gentiles also hath 
God granted repentance unto life." 

When we turn to the career of the great apostle 
to the Gentiles, we find him proclaiming one mes- 
sage everywhere. In the Areopagus at Athens, the 

67 



Repentance 

seat of learning of the Gentile world, it is, "God 
commandeth men that they should all everywhere 
xepent" (Acts 17:30). According to his own 
.statement (Acts 20:21), his theme had been for 
.the years in Asia Minor, "Kepentance toward God 
:and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." When 
making his defense before King Agrippa (Acts 
26: 19, 20), in covering his career as a minister 
of the gospel from his first appointment by Jesus 
Christ to that day, it was expressed thus, "Where- 
upon, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto 
the heavenly vision : but declared to them of Da- 
mascus first, and at Jerusalem, and throughout 
all the country of Judaea, and also to the Gentiles, 
that they should repent and turn to God, doing 
ivorks worthy of repentance." This is Paul's own 
synopsis of his world-wide preaching. 

Evidently, according to the teaching of the 
Holy Scriptures, as they set forth the plan and 
the proclamation of the spiritual regeneration of 
mankind, repentance is the one great end sought 
to be brought about. It is, at the same time, the 
doorway into the kingdom of God, and that king- 
dom itself set up in the heart of man. For the ac- 
complishing of this are brought to bear upon men 

68 



Repentance 

the great truths of religion touching God and man 
— God's justice and his mercy, his hatred of sin 
and compassion for the sinner, pardon as provided 
in Christ; man's sin, with its slavery and guilt and 
ruin, his freedom to choose righteousness and 
peace ; and to make these effective are the awaken- 
ing influences of the Holy Spirit, who has been 
sent to "convict the world in respect of sin and 
of righteousness, and of judgment." 

To proclaim and enforce all this awakening and 
saving truth, Christ, the great head and leader 
of the kingdom of heaven, has for sixty genera- 
tions had his appointed ambassadors. They are 
to-day calling men everywhere to "repentance 
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus 
Christ." This is the awakening and saving sum- 
mons that is destined to travel the world around r 
to be carried on its way by heralds of each suc- 
ceeding generation, penetrating the distant and 
densest masses of "darkest" barbarous tribes, until 
"unto the uttermost part of the earth" it has been 
carried, to "make disciples of all the nations." 
Would that the call might be with greater unction 
and "power from on high," and with transform- 
ing influence upon the hearts and lives of men. 

69 



CHAPTER V. 
Foes of Repentance. 

It has been seen that true repentance arises 
from a conviction of having offended God. Its 
necessary background is a settled, intelligent be- 
lief in the being and character of God, his sover- 
eignty, his holiness, his justice, his mercy. It is 
evident, hence, that any and all forms of skepti- 
cism which turn down or shade or obliterate be- 
lief in the existence of a personal, immanent God 
are foes to repentance and to all religion. There 
is no little such atheistic thought entertained 
among the people of Christendom. 

Some men would fain substitute a law of nature 
for the living God. As says Dr. Josiah Strong, 
"The reign of law has been substituted for the 
reign of God." Such persons conceive of an un- 
thinking, omnipotent principle, like gravitation; 
they think of a power like the mighty sea, carrying 
a vessel upon its crest or sinking it to its bottom 



Repentance 

with equal indifference; but a merely mechanical 
omnipotence is not God. The human soul can 
have no communication with such an abstraction. 
ISTo man could feel accountable to such a panthe- 
istic essence. No sinner in his senses would sup- 
pose himself offending this great "unknowable" by 
not living a life of prayer and uprightness. Ag- 
nosticism says, "If there is a God, we do not know 
him." 

The clear fact is, that, from the standpoint of 
agnosticism, religion is unreasonable, impossible. 
There is no ruler of the universe to obey, no law- 
giver to offend, no supreme being to worship. We 
may see why it is that in this age of agnostic tend- 
ency of thought among many classes, there is a 
corresponding obliterating of the distinctions of 
right and wrong, sin and holiness, and an accom- 
panying decay of conscience. With persons of 
such pantheistic conceptions, repentance has no 
place and a life of piety no prompting cause. Ee- 
ligion cannot exist without a personal God, the 
Jehovah of the Bible, upon his throne. The latent 
skepticism of these times is Christianity's most 
formidable foe. It is the parent, also, of what 



71 



Repentance 

Dr. G. Campbell Morgan calls "the new atheism 
of indifference." 

It has been agreed that a sense of personal un- 
worthiness, sin, and guilt, is a prime element in 
repentance. So a false estimate of man, morally, 
an underestimate of human depravity and sin, and 
an overestimate of human virtues, would lessen 
the effect of the gospel call to repentance. It 
scarcely need be said that there is no little tend- 
ency nowadays to estimate unregenerated men as 
standing upon a higher moral plane than they 
occupy; many flatter themselves that they and 
their kind do not need to repent. As Van Ooster- 
zee says, "There is a practical Pelagianism, which 
considers repentance unnecessary, except for some 
monstrous sinners." Sin is apologized for, re- 
duced to a "mistake" — no very bad thing in "re- 
spectable people," such as are we. Eespectability 
is made to "cover a multitude of sins" ; but James 
tells us, chapter 5 : 20, that it is the converting of 
a sinner from the error of his way that covers sins. 
Many have abandoned the old process. The old 
sense of sin seems with many to be a "vanishing 
quantity." Even with some religious writers, it 
has lost its heinousness. Mr. Gladstone says, 

72 



Repentance 

"They appear to have a very low estimate both of 
the quantity and the quality of sin; of its amount, 
spread like a deluge over the world, and of the 
subtlety, intensity, and virulence of its nature." 

Evidently, in proportion as this phase of 
thought touching human nature prevails, in like 
measure will the preaching of repentance fall upon 
unimpressed minds and hearts. I do not, I need 
not, with those who are really candid with them- 
selves, and believe the Scriptures, and have a true 
conception of the meaning of the cross, argue the 
radical and dangerous error of all this self -flattery, 
this cant and twaddle about the newly-discovered 
inherent goodness in human nature. I only call 
attention to its being a great neutralizer of the 
message of Jesus Christ and his church to a sinful 
world. 

Born of this error is another, that of the cul- 
turists. Having such good material with which to 
begin the making of a true man, all that is needed 
is culture. Prune down the bad and cultivate 
the good, and we shall have the strength and sym- 
metry of noble, virtuous character ; no call for the 
ingrafting of a new scion. Such is the theory of 
so-called "culturism." Now, we all believe in eul- 

73 



Repentance 

ture; we esteem it, we promote it, we seek it, we 
are enriched by it; but it has its own field, it does 
only its own part in the elevation and ennobling 
of humanity. But the culturists of our day of 
whom I am speaking are those who are "its ex- 
clusive advocates, who recommend it as the one 
panacea for all the ills of humanity, for its effect 
in cultivating the whole man." 

While the error of this position, it would seem, 
could be seen upon even a little serious thought 
and candid observation, yet we are, many of us, 
so blinded by prejudice that we often do not see 
the things which are clear enough. To-day many 
people worship the idol that is called "culture." 
Above the cross, above the Christ, is placed this 
modern fetish, culture. To preach to an assembly 
of typical advocates of "Kultya" an old-time gos- 
pel sermon from the life-time text of Jesus of 
Nazareth, "The kingdom of God is at hand; re- 
pent ye, and believe in the gospel," would be worse 
than wasting sweetness on the desert air — it would 
be the offering of a gross insult. 

Yes, the gospel of repentance has hard rowing 
against the current of modern culture. It is too 
insinuating, too abrupt, too gross a system of hu- 

74 



Repentance 

man betterment. But, mark, the gospel stripped 
of its two-edged, piercing sword, the gospel with 
its teeth pulled, the gospel robed in the garments 
of culture, is all right. Have we two gospels from 
American pulpits to-day, the gospel of repentance 
and the gospel of culture ? 

A false conception of the sovereignty and "de- 
crees" of God, it cannot be doubted, has been a 
hindrance to many men in the field of their own 
action in the matter of religion. It may have led 
to discouragement in one case, to delay in another, 
or in another to disgust with the whole beclouded 
matter. Now, as one has suggested, it is not de- 
crees against which the moral sense protests, but 
against a certain philosophy of decrees, as when 
Augustine ties down the grace of God to the sac- 
raments, or Calvin limits it by His inscrutable, 
sovereign will ; as when we are told that God must 
be just, but need not be merciful; that law is un- 
bounded, but grace limited; that God has an in- 
finite love for all, but a special love for the elect. 
Xo, we can brook no such "class legislation" in 
God's plan of salvation, and there is none. "God 
is no respecter of persons"; he is indifferent to 
none, he is impartial to all. When the fogs of the 

75 



Repentance 

mediaeval view of the sovereignty of God shall 
have more fully cleared away, men will see more 
clearly the duty and the privilege of immediate 
repentance in the name of Him who, by the grace 
of God, tasted death for every man. 

If other foes of repentance were named, they 
would all come under the general head of rivals, 
such things, to use a very generic term, as, when 
in action, in any way make less prominent and 
necessary the person's own individual heart-act 
in his salvation. Among such could be named 
formalism, ritualism, hierarchism, Phariseeism. 
Each is an all too prominent influence in the re- 
ligious life of to-day. Each is a rival of the evan- 
gelical idea and spirit of the gospel. 

Yet, notwithstanding all the foes named and un- 
named of the great doctrine and fact of repent- 
ance, it will still, and it will ever be the key-note 
and the fruitage of the gospel. 



76 



CHAPTER VI. 

Closing Thoughts. 

In the discussion of this theme, numerous vital 
things have been understood as basal. First, and 
most vital, is the atonement, ever to be held as the 
great trunk doctrine of Christianity, and nothing 
further than this need here be said. Another is 
the divine part, the agency of the Holy Spirit in 
the work of repentance. 

It is understood by Scripture, and is a matter 
of experience, that the awakening and quickening 
influence of the Spirit is needed to bring about 
evangelical repentance. The divine Spirit — the 
executive of the Godhead — sends the gospel mes- 
sage home to the hearts, very often the unwilling 
hearts of men, and makes it effectual ; and also in 
the effectual repentance of the sinner is recognized 
the presence of the Spirit's regenerating power. 

So, while the act of repentance is that of the 
man's own free and regal choice, it is like the act 

L.ofC. 77 



Repentance 

of the will in every other field — a determination 
made after influences have been brought to bear 
which have been fully weighed. In all lines of 
choice men wait for light, and here the mind and 
heart are enlightened by that light "which lighteth 
every man coming into the world." 

It is hoped that the scriptural view of the uni- 
versal necessity of repentance in order to salvation 
will have been impressed upon the minds of all. 
Its application is coextensive with the family of 
man, reaching to all lands and being obligatory 
upon all classes, high and low, great and small, 
the best and the basest; no dignity or rank, no 
ignorance or learning exempts men from the im- 
perative command of God to repent. 

It is not so much to be feared that men will 
deny the theory of it, as that they may slight or 
warp the practice of it. And what I wish to warn 
against is the danger that classes and kinds of 
people may outline for themselves classes and 
kinds of repentance. There is only one kind of 
repentance. One type of disease is in the system 
of us all, and for it there is but one remedy. The 
pill is strong and bitter and without sugar-coat- 
ing. All classes must take it, or perish. 



Repentance 

The call in every case is to repentance immedi- 
ate. This is a necessary part of the very thought ; 
to propose a deferred repentance would be the 
clear granting of a license to sin. Every scripture 
calling us to repentance has its "now" or its "to- 
daj 7 /' either expressed or implied. The folly, un- 
worthiness, and danger of postponing repentance 
should lead every man, like the prodigal, to arise 
and go to God at once. Excuses and supposed 
difficulties, want of feeling, distraction by doubts, 
sense of unworthiness, unfavorable moral sur- 
roundings, press of business, imperfections of pro- 
fessing Christians, the buying and going to see 
a field, the buying and going to prove five yoke of 
>xen, or the marrying of a wife, — yes, excuses as 
numerous and various as the number and sinful 
ingenuity of those inventing them, will arise as 
if by spontaneity in the mind ; but the sincere man 
will brush them aside, heed the voice of God, and 
be true to his own conscience and regardful of his 
highest interest. "Wherefore even as the Holy 
Spirit saith, To-day if ye shall hear his voice, 
harden not your hearts" (Heb. 3:7). There is 
much meaning in this passage. 

The heart-hardening of a man is a dreadful 



Repentance 

piece of suicide. This is what multitudes who 
have heard, and are now hearing the voice of God 
are doing. There are fifteen millions of such peo- 
ple, unrepentant youth and adults, in this gospel- 
favored land to-day. It is a sad and fearful fact, 
yet millions of them intend to repent, expect to 
quit their life of indifference and sin, seek and 
obtain pardon, and live in the favor of God, and 
die in hope of heaven. What presumption, what 
stupid folly, aye, what Heaven-daring sin ! What 
can be done to awaken these people before they 
reach that fearful moral state portrayed by Christ 
in Matthew 13 : 12-15, where, by long disregarding 
the light and truth, "seeing they see not and hear- 
ing they hear not, neither do they understand/' — 
awaken them before it is too late ? We need some 
John the Baptist, some Tauler or Wesley or Otter- 
bein or Finney, yes, ten thousand such, to stand 
forth proclaiming the gospel of repentance in notes 
that shall thrill the land with a trumpet call. 

Thus does the gospel place its great truths, 
touching God and man, before the world and 
make its appeal to the intellect and the heart of 
the race. I say, it appeals to the reason of 
men. It is not my purpose to discuss the phi- 

80 



Repentance 

losophy of religion, or its relation to the science of 
the day. While religion is neither science nor phi- 
losophy, it has some things which are within the 
circle of each. True faith and true reason never 
have been in conflict ; science and Christianity are 
in accord. That among the unphilosophical vo- 
taries of science there has been no little skepticism 
is matter of common knowledge. The intense 
empiricism of the times has carried many off their 
feet, and the multitude with the leaders, so that 
the age just past has been dominated by the sensu- 
ous. The things of the supersensuous world have 
been doubted. The horizon has been largely 
bounded by that which lies within reach of the 
senses. But the age of this narrow, unphilosoph- 
ical view of life is evidently passing, and we have 
already entered, let us hope, upon a new era of 
rational faith. 

Says Henry Van Dyke, in his book, "The Gospel 
for a World of Sin": "There is a renaissance 
of religion. Spiritual instincts and cravings as- 
sert themselves and demand their rights. The 
loftier aspirations and larger hopes of mankind 
are leading the new generation forward into the 
twentieth century as men who advance to a noble 

6 81 



Repentance 

conflict and a glorious triumph, under the cap- 
taincy of the Christ that was and is to be. The 
educated youth of to-day are turning with a 
mighty, world-wide movement toward the banner 
of a militant, expectant, imperial Christianity. 
The discoveries of science, once deemed hostile 
and threatening to religion, are in process of swift 
transformation into the materials of a new de- 
fense of the faith. The achievements of commerce 
and social organization have made new and broad 
highways around the world for the onward march 
of the believing host. Already we can discern the 
brightness of another great age of f aith." 

The great strength of our gospel is, that it does 
meet the spiritual need of every man who, with all 
his heart embraces it. We, its votaries, may each 
say, and with especial emphasis in this age of its 
manifest triumphs, as did Paul, when carrying it, 
in its infancy, to the world's proud heathen center, 
"I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the 
power of God unto salvation to every one that 
belie veth" (Eom. 1:16). As it was in Paul's day, 
so now, "Christ crucified" is to some "a stumbling- 
block," and to others "foolishness"; but, also, just 
as then, so now, to such as accept it, it is 

82 



Repentance 

"the power of God, and the wisdom of God" 
(I. Cor. 1). 

Why, I ask, should not we sinful men, all, with 
docile mind and open heart, hear and heed God's 
proffer of help and pardon? It may not, it does 
not, suit the fancy of us all, but that is not against 
it, but against us; and it is our part to cease ob- 
jecting and comply. The divine purpose of grace 
has been perfected and put in operation, and is 
not to be bent aside for us, but we are asked to 
bend before it. The great facts and requirements 
and blessings of the kingdom of heaven have been 
determined and provided, and the proclamation of 
them has been made. They are a great and com- 
plete system, as complete as the system of nature, 
and as unalterable. The invitation is made to men 
to accept them, to their salvation. Light is come 
into the world, and men are asked to turn from 
darkness and walk in the light — to repent. The 
appeal is made to our highest reason and our high- 
est conscience, enforced by considerations of our 
highest good. 

The great folly and sin of Christ's day was, as 
he said, that the light had come into the world, 
and men loved darkness rather than the light. 

83 






Repentance 

(John 3: 19.) This is the great sin of any age; 
it is the towering sin of our age. Its results on 
moral and spiritual life are baneful, suicidal. To 
turn from revealed light and persist in discovered 
error is like fighting against the stars in their 
courses. 

Sin is unforgivable and irremediable when per- 
sisted in as sin ; but the proposition and the prom- 
ise of the gospel is that sin shall no longer be im- 
puted to a man when, with penitence of heart and 
faith in Jesus Christ, he turns from it to right- 
eousness. Nor shall it any longer have dominion 
over him, for the divine Liberator has broken its 
power and set him free. (Luke 4: 18, 19; John 
8 : 36.) I repeat, there could not be made to the 
world of needy, sinful men a more reasonable, self- 
commending proposition than the gospel's gracious 
high appeal. 



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